Britons fear new 'mad cow' variant
LONDON, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- A woman who died in England from "mad cow" disease had a genotype different than the particular genetic profile of those normally susceptible to the disease.
A 39-year-old woman died from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and her genetic profile varied from the genetic profile of previous patients susceptible to CJD, The Times of London reported Thursday.
Most examiners said they suspect the woman developed a CJD variant not caused by eating infected beef but, if it's found to be a new CJD variant associated with bovine spongiform encephalopathy, it may indicate a second susceptible human genotype.
The malfunction of proteins in the central nervous system in CJD occurs in the 40 percent of the human population who have two copies of the amino acid methionine in the proteins, known as MM genotype.
The discovery of CJD in different genotypes suggests the disease is affecting different genetic groups but the disease may be masked due to longer incubation times.
The genetic profile of the woman is published in the journal Archives of Neurology, but one scientist says, "the final conclusion remains open."
Tiny mites may have killed dinosaurs
CORVALLIS, Ore., Jan. 3 (UPI) -- A U.S. zoologist says dinosaurs may have been killed off by tiny, biting, disease-carrying insects.
George Poinar Jr., a professor of zoology at Oregon State University, said one of the problems with sudden impact theories of dinosaur extinction is that dinosaurs declined and disappeared over a period of hundreds of thousands of years.
"That time frame is just not consistent with the effects of an asteroid impact," Poinar said Thursday in a release. "But competition with insects, emerging new diseases and the spread of flowering plants over very long periods of time is perfectly compatible with everything we know about dinosaur extinction."
The concept is outlined in the new book "What Bugged the Dinosaurs? Insects, Disease and Death in the Cretaceous," by George and Roberta Poinar.
"We don't suggest that the appearance of biting insects and the spread of disease are the only things that relate to dinosaur extinction," Poinar said. "Other geologic and catastrophic events certainly played a role. But by themselves, such events do not explain a process that in reality took a very, very long time, perhaps millions of years. Insects and diseases do provide that explanation."
Docs admit prescribing placebos
CHICAGO, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- A survey found that U.S. doctors may prescribe placebos more often than patients are aware.
The report from University of Chicago Medical Center said 45 percent of Chicago internists have prescribed a placebo at some point in their clinical practice.
Study authors, Rachel Sherman, a medical student at the University of Chicago's Pritzker School of Medicine, and Dr. John Hickner, a professor of family medicine, sent questionnaires inquiring about placebo use to 466 internists at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and University of Illinois-Chicago.
Of the 231 physicians who responded, 45 percent said they used placebos in clinical practice. Thirty-four percent said they introduced the placebos to the patient as "a substance that may help and will not hurt." Nineteen percent said, "It is medication," and 9 percent said, "It is medicine with no specific effect." Only 4 percent of the physicians explicitly said, "It is a placebo."
"In addition to their recognized use as controls in clinical trials, this study suggests that placebos themselves are viewed as therapeutic tools in medical practice," Sherman said Thursday in a release.
Maternal obesity puts newborns at risk
LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Jan. 3 (UPI) -- U.S. researchers say pregnant women who are overweight or obese are more likely to give birth to heavier babies at higher risk of becoming obese adults.
Researchers at the U.S.Department of Agriculture-Arkansas Children's Nutrition Center found fetal exposure to gestational obesity leads to a self-reinforcing vicious cycle of excessive weight gain and body fat which passes from mother to child.
The findings appear in the online edition of the American Journal of Physiology -- Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology.
In lab tests, rats born to obese mothers gained remarkably more weight than other rats when fed a high-fat diet. Obese offspring fed a high-fat diet had a 26 percent greater percent fat ratio and a 60 percent increase in subcutaneous fat mass.
While high fat feeding significantly increased serum glucose, triglyceride, insulin and leptin levels in both groups, serum insulin and leptin levels increased by 2.2 and 2.3 fold in obese offspring compared to lean offspring fed the same diet.
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